


Breathe

by agenthaywood



Series: Someday You'll Understand [15]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 12:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3488465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agenthaywood/pseuds/agenthaywood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye keeps watching the heart rate monitor and breathes. She needs to breathe. She needs to stay calm. When she gets upset, bad things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe

Breathe

 

//2 DAYS AFTER SAN JUAN//

 

Skye walked across the tiled floor of the lab. She had to get to the armory before she left with May. Coulson was having them escort Quinn to Gen. Talbot. Skye couldn’t help but think that this is the first time that Talbot was being useful to S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than a hindrance.

 

Skye pulled a .45 off the wall and hit the magazine release. The gun was fully loaded and Skye slammed the magazine back into place before chambering a round. She made sure to grab a couple spare magazines and slide them into the clips on her waistline.

 

\--

 

The base had been quiet since the agents got back. The weight of Trip’s death still a very present event in everyone’s minds. Coulson gave a eulogy in front of everyone while May had a star soldered to the wall in the garage and Mack drilled in a plaque.

 

Everyone spent a few hours drinking and reminiscing about Trip’s wise old sayings and jokes. At one point Fitz and Simmons brought up a time when Trip helped them overhaul the PLAYGROUND’s laboratory so Skye could hack into the APA and the CDC databases for access to medical records.

 

Skye didn’t join in on the storytelling. She opted for a bottle of scotch and sitting on the roof. Simmons didn’t want her out of her sight but one look in Skye’s eyes made everyone shut up and let her be.

 

Coulson only let her go after the “it wasn’t your fault” lecture. It was followed shortly after the “Trip made his choice and there was nothing you could do” addition. Skye listened like the good little girl she always tried to be in her foster families.

 

She appreciated what they were trying to do, but none of them knew what Skye saw. Skye _watched_ Trip turn into stone. She _saw_ the look of acceptance on his face as the rock wrapped around him and burrowed into his flesh. She _saw_ that rock break under the power of the shaking earth but unlike Skye, Trip didn’t come out of the rock.

 

Trip was gone. Dead, but Skye was alive. Why did she get to live while someone far better than her had to die?

 

Why did everyone close to her die?

 

Who was next?

 

\--

 

Skye walked down the staircase of Vault C. She tapped in the commands on her tablet and the room lit up showing her one waiting Ian Quinn. He stood up and remained quiet. Skye appreciated the sentiment. She really wasn’t in the mood for dealing with Quinn’s smartass remarks.

 

“Hands behind your head.” Skye spoke robotically. Quinn listened to her dutifully. Part of his compliance could be because there were bruises littering his body. May needed to work out her rage in private.

 

Skye took a pair of handcuffs out of her back pocket and clamped them down on Quinn’s wrists and twisting his arms behind his back. Skye took her pistol out of her holster and pressed the barrel into Quinn’s back.

 

“Move,” She ordered.

 

Quinn walked slowly up the stairs. Skye saw the way he favored his right leg over his left. May must have torn some ligaments during the, “interrogation.” Skye stopped thinking before a shudder could run through her at the thought.

 

\--

 

Dropping Quinn off at the pick-up point was uneventful. No one bothered to try to talk to Skye. Skye didn’t press for conversation either. She didn’t need conversation. She needed something to do.

 

Quinn was uncharacteristically quiet during the drive. Skye expected to hear some pathetic ramblings about how he could fund S.H.I.E.L.D. if they let him stay. Skye thought she may have even considered it once upon the time.

 

Coulson might ask her to hack his bank accounts anyway. It’s not like she didn’t have computers running that setup anyway. What was one more to the list?

 

\--

 

Simmons was standing outside the lab leaning against the wall. She was waiting on Skye and May to return. She wasn’t keen on letting Skye out of the base right now but she couldn’t exactly speak up against Coulson.

 

She also didn’t miss how Skye’s face lit up for the first time since they got back to the PLAYGROUND at the prospect of doing something. Simmons didn’t bring up how they never bothered to quarantine Skye given that she was exposed to an unknown substance.

 

Maybe Coulson and May knew something Simmons didn’t. Maybe Simmons was a little too overburdened with the sudden loss of Trip and coordinating the science teams in the tunnels preparing for Coulson’s orders to flood them.

 

Maybe Simmons didn’t like the possibility of there being something alien in Skye’s body. Simmons knew the feeling, and she wouldn’t wish it upon her worst enemy let her alone one of her closest friends.

 

\--

 

In the end, Coulson still wanted Skye tested for any residual contaminants from being in the underground city. Simmons strapped Skye to a blood pressure cuff and had her sit down on a cot in the lab.

 

Skye’s blood pressure was normal, maybe a little high but given the stress of the last few days it wasn’t a surprise. Simmons rubbed an alcohol swab over the crook of Skye’s elbow. Skye’s eyes drifted to the pulse monitor to her right and she tried to not notice how her pulse wouldn’t drop below a hundred BPM.

 

Simmons inserted the needle to draw blood and Skye saw her heartrate jump from 100 to 110. An involuntary shiver ran down Skye’s spine.

 

“I’m afraid that given the scans necessary for your blood, Skye, you’ll be forced to stay in the lab until they’re done. It shouldn’t be longer than a couple days at most.” Simmons apologized sheepishly.

 

“It’s OK. Better safe than sorry.” Skye lamented with a small smile.

 

“I’ll bring you some more comfortable clothes. I know it gets cold in here at night.” Simmons said as she finished drawing the blood and cleaning up Skye’s elbow.

 

Skye sat there and waited for Simmons to return. She turned to look at the heartrate monitor and it didn’t escape her that the pole was shaking along with her hands.

 

Were her blood results going to be different? Did she really cause the earthquake in the tomb?

 

Skye’s mind flashed back to the temple. Chrysalis

 

\--

 

//MOMENTS AFTER EMERGING FROM THE CHRYSALIS//

 

Skye fell to the ground when the shaking started dying down. The tomb was strangely holding up despite the walls being cracked severely. Fitz would probably go off on a tangent about the unlikely hood that a temple that had stood for possibly a millennia would fall apart from an earthquake.

 

Skye turned to the pile of rubble. Trip’s pile of rubble.

 

Skye crawled over to the pile and lifted a piece of it. The piece that used to be Trip’s eyes. Skye felt tears start streaming and a second quake starting in the tomb.

 

“What the hell?” Skye heard someone scream behind her.

 

It was Raina. Skye turned around to see her. The ground started settling.

 

Skye couldn’t see the woman. The obelisk was what showed most of the light and what little Skye’s glow stick made was crushed under a rock.

 

Raina took off running out of a hole made in the temple before Skye could grab the gun at her side.

 

\--

 

//PRESENT TIME//

 

Skye pulled on the sweater Simmons brought her. She was right that the lab got cold as the day got late. She sat back down on the bed.

 

Everyone was arguing about something in the corner. The glass in front of her muffled most of their words but when Mack started yelling Skye could feel the ground start to shake with her anxiousness.

 

The soda can Bobbi had brought her was shaking as well, not enough to be noticed but just the thought that Coulson might see it made Skye grab the can in an attempt to still the earth beneath her.

 

The ground beneath Skye’s feet eventually settled. She looked around the lab and breathed a sigh of relief when no one seemed to have noticed that anything out of the ordinary happened.

 

\--

 

Simmons ranting to Skye wasn’t something that Skye thought was weird. The weird part came from Simmons talking about eradicating the people “infected” with the alien stuff.

 

“Only a few more hours on your blood sample Skye. Hopefully they’re nothing like Raina’s.” Simmons spoke calmly after breathing for a moment.

 

\--

 

Fitz freaking out at her made Skye lose the fragile hold over her emotions that for some reason beyond her controlled her powers.

 

The lamp above her head exploded making Skye jump and the small trembling only increasing with her fear.

 

\--

 

Fitz covering for her wasn’t what scared her. The fact that he was willing to lie to Simmons terrified her to no end. Would Simmons’ rant about “eradicating” include Skye as well?

 

“We need to keep this quiet until everyone calms down.” Fitz spoke quietly while he bandaged her hand.

 

“Simmons wouldn’t actually try to _hurt_ me would she?” Skye asked trying to ignore the bite in her hand as Fitz pressed the bandage into the cut.

 

“Simmons isn’t the only one you need to worry about, Skye. The entire team’s out for blood. They’re looking for someone to blame and HYDRA’s not going to fill that space forever. Besides, you know exactly what happens to gifteds around here who can’t control themselves.” Fitz stopped talking and looked away.

 

“Sorry,” He apologized.

 

“Don’t be.” Skye assured him. She squeezed his hand in hers despite the fresh bite of pain. She needed to feel something.

 

\--

 

//OUTSKIRTS OF DETROIT//

 

//3 DAYS AFTER SAN JUAN//

 

Ward walked out onto the terrace of the safehouse. He leaned against the railing and welcomed the fresh bite of the cool morning air.

 

“You’ll pull your stitches.” A small voice spoke up behind him.

 

“Maybe, but there’s work to do.” Ward spoke back to 33.

 

“What’s our next move?” 33 asked softly. Ward didn’t miss the electric blip in her voice as the mask continued to try to function.

 

“We get that thing off of you, and we go from there.” Ward spoke slowly and calmly. He didn’t want to push her farther than necessary.

 

33 didn’t seem too off kilter but Ward knew the shock would wear off eventually. He needed to keep her busy with a plan or else she would start thinking about what happened at the villa and that was something Ward wanted to avoid until he had a better chance of restraining her if necessary.

 

The stitches in his side weren’t going to hold if he needed to fight, and that meant getting a mission together.

 

All that left was for Ward to figure out where to start.

**Author's Note:**

> So I thought this would be longer, but I keep remembering that I don't go into other characters POV aside from Skye and Ward's very often so I ended up cutting out a lot of stuff.
> 
> Next chapter should be longer. We'll be getting into what Ward's planning on doing and we're going to see how Skye goes through the motions of trying to hide something directly related to her emotions and heartbeat.


End file.
